


(words fall like) daggers

by TechnicalTragedy



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Crows, Deal with a Devil, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Unrequited Love, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 13:00:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7846042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TechnicalTragedy/pseuds/TechnicalTragedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Take me instead.”</p><p>"A deal is a deal, de Rolo."</p>
            </blockquote>





	(words fall like) daggers

**Author's Note:**

> i dont know. this might be completely incomprehensible. i just wanted percy and crows and weird almost kind of perc'ildan happened. 
> 
> title is from [Daggers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzm-vS7WBSs) by Team Me

“Take me instead.”

 

The darkness whirls, cacophonous and dead silent at the same time. The atmosphere itself falls away and Percy is a vacuum, he is cosmic and limited and infinite and infinitesimal. He stops thinking.

 

Vax breathes.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The shadows stir at the back of Percy’s mind. “The ritual will fail. You will try, but you will let him die.”

 

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Percy says. His voice is amplified and muted, a disconcerting contradiction.

 

The smoke rises. It is form without form, shape without mass, two burning black eyes set in a skull of bleached bone. Shadows twist their way to Percy’s ears, whispered and warped voices snaking into his mind. “Anything?” the smoke asks.

 

“Yes,” Percy says. “Yes, I’ll do anything. Just, bring him back.”

 

In a flash, Percy is swallowed by the smoke. It fills him like sand in a sieve, heavy but quickly drained away. He can’t breathe past it, can barely think as it constricts around him and blocks his senses. He’s drowning, he must be, smoke pouring down his throat like oil while he dies a thrashing, choking death.

It stops as soon as it’s begun, and Percy is left alone and cold again.

 

“A deal is a deal, de Rolo,” the sourceless voice says. The words sink soul-deep before he wakes.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“You propose a trade? Yourself for the Fate-Touched?”

 

“Fate-Touched?” Percy says, doesn't say. “Vax?”

 

Searing pain seizes him, a hand on his throat burning down through to his lungs. He screams without sound, fights without effect. Percy is filled with the sinking knowledge that he dies here. He stops breathing.

 

Vax opens his eyes.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

There are days when it hurts more than usual. Percy's hands shake more and more.

 

“I don't know why you've stayed with us this long,” Vax says. His words are daggers seeking the weak points in Percy's armor. “You must realize, Percival, that we don't want you around.”

 

Percy doesn't respond. He doesn't do much of that, these days. A stipulation had been that Vax could never know. So Vax will never know. He'll wear his feathers, his raven skull holding it all together, and enjoy his words and the air in his lungs, and never know.

 

“Motherfucker,” Vax curses, and walks away.

 

He'll never know. He'll never know. He can never know. He won't ever know. Percy will make sure he never finds out. But Percy watches him leave and swallows the words.

 

It's for the best.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“We were friends, once,” Percy says.

 

He doesn't look at Vax.

 

“If that means anything to you – if that _ever_ meant _anything_ to you – you'll try to understand.”

 

He can feel Vax looking at him.

 

“Fuck you,” Vax says.

 

That's about what Percy expected.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The words echo, overlaid and jumbled, but Percy listens. The wind whispers to him and he knows he should do it, knows the ground would rise to meet him like an old friend. _L’appel du vide_ , they call it in another land, another time.

 

Raven flutter past, beating black wings as they fly and fly and fly... Percy would never fly. Not like Vax, or Vex, or Keyleth, or Pike, or Scanlan. He and Grog were designed for the ground. It leaves a acrid taste in his mouth, something settling deep in him.

 

A crow lands feet from him. Hesitant, Percy reaches out. The crow allows him to make contact, before it croaks and coasts down off the tower. That _something_ sinks into Percy's feet.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Vax splutters as he wakes, Vex'ahlia’s arms around him almost instantaneously once he’s sitting up. He blinks around him, at his blood soaked family and the ruined room. “I died,” he says. His voice shakes. “But I’m not dead.”

 

“Pike brought you back,” Vex says, tears streaming down her cheeks. “We brought you back, brother.”

 

Percy bites his tongue until he tastes copper. They can't know.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Rain falls in sheets over Whitestone. It's usually snow, especially at this time of year, but somehow it's rain. The crow lands on Percy's balcony railing. He's taken to calling it Oliver, and the friends it sometimes brings along with it are named after Percy's other family members.

 

Oliver croaks, and Percy puts out a hand for it to jump on. Percy gently strokes at Oliver's wet feathers.

 

“A deal is a deal,” a shadow in the corner of the room whispers.

 

“Shut up, I know,” Percy says. “You remind me fifty times a day.”

 

The shadow recedes. Oliver croaks. Percy goes to find something to dry it.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“Why won't you just _leave_?” Vax says.

 

Percy sighs. “Leave what? My ancestral home, or Vox Machina?”

 

Vax shrugs. “Either.”

 

“There's no need to be cruel,” Percy says.

 

“Truly?” Vax says. “You killed my sister. I'll be as cruel as I please.”

 

Percy looks away. “I suppose that's true.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Oliver lands on Percy's shoulder. He's watching Vax, as he usually is.

 

“Was our deal worth it?” the shadow says. It sounds, oddly, like the croaking of a crow.

 

Percy's right hand crackles with pain. He looks down to the talons poking out from under his fingernails, the tar-black feathers sprouting from under his skin, the more pronounced shaking of his hand.

 

“His life is worth all this and more,” Percy says.

 

Oliver pecks at his cheek and draws away a thin piece of skin. It feels like a comfort.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“I love you.”

 

Vax punches Percy across the jaw.

 

Percy can't help but smile.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“Percy?” Keyleth says. She's looking at his hands in abject horror, mouth agape as she fixates on them.

 

He knows they're getting worse. He can't stop the shaking, even if he focuses on it. He is monstrous, horrific. “Yes,” Percy says.

 

Keyleth steps forward, her hands out and glowing softly. “I can fix this,” she says. “I can fix you before it's too late.”

 

Percy laughs, grinning with a mouthful of sharp teeth. “It's already too late.”

 

“Oh, Percy. What did you do?” Keyleth says. She takes his clawed, quivering hands in hers.

 

“I traded my soul for love,” he says. “And got no love in return.”

 

Keyleth gasps, shocked. “Is this about-?”

 

Percy interrupts her by coughing up feathers.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

“We could always just kill him,” Grog says.

 

“He's our _family_ , we're not going to kill him,” Pike says.

 

“I'm not sure he's Percy anymore,” Scanlan says.

 

“Who else would he be? This is purely physical, he's still the same person we've always known,” Vex says.

 

“I always knew we couldn't trust him,” Vax says.

 

“He did this for _you_ , Vax. Does he really mean nothing to you?” Keyleth says.

 

The room goes quiet.

 

Vax scowls. “What the fuck do you mean, he did this for me? He turned himself into some sort of bird horror for my sake?”

 

“He made a _deal_ ,” Keyleth says. “When you died, _Percy_ brought you back.”

 

Percy stands to his full, imposing height. His pitch-dark eyes rove over Vox Machina. “The deal stands. I take my leave.” He steps out of the window and the ground rises to meet him like an old friend.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Vax punches him. Percy's getting tired of his whole shtick.

 

“You _fucker_. You couldn't just let me die,” Vax says.

 

“I couldn't,” Percy agrees. “I am, at my core, a selfish man.”

 

Vax growls near-animalistically. “What could you possibly have to gain by bringing me back?”

 

Percy arches an eyebrow. “If you still haven't figured it out, you must be improbably thick.”

 

Vax swings again, but Percy easily catches it. His fingers tighten around Vax's wrist, sharp talons digging in to draw blood. “Let me go,” Vax spits.

 

“It's because I _love_ you, you damned fool,” Percy says.

 

“I could never love a creature such as you.”

 

Percy's lips pull back into a snarl. “You've no idea what sort of creature I am. But you may yet learn.”

 

 

\- - -

 

 

Oliver perches on Percy's outstretched hand. He croaks.

 

“Good boy, Oliver,” Percy says.

 

Another crow, Vesper, snuggles down into the junction of Percy's neck and shoulder. He barely notices, so used to it as he is.

 

“Town is a while away yet,” Percy says. “We could probably make it before sundown if we keep moving.”

 

“Then I say we keep moving,” Scanlan says. A murmur of agreement goes up around the rest of the party. They keep moving.

 

Percy remembers the warmth of Pelor's summer, the cold of the Raven Queen's winter, the all-consuming smoke of Orthax's vengeance. He remembers the happiness of the de Rolos, the haze of years that passed following their deaths, the clarity that was Vox Machina.

 

Nothing feels so good as Vax falling into step beside him for the remainder of their walk.

 

He knows. The deal was worth it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> come fly with me on tumblr [@aramente](http://aramente.tumblr.com)


End file.
